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After I wrote last week about the justices and graduation speeches, a longtime Supreme Court employee reminded me of the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s advice for graduates: Stop and smell the roses. “Do not let the law be too jealous a mistress,” he used to say. “You must give yourself time not only to do a variety of things, but to allow yourself time to appreciate and enjoy what you are doing.”

A leader of the Court’s conservative revolution, Rehnquist cut a stern, sometimes cold, figure in the courtroom. Yet he had plenty of friends, liberals among them, outside the marble columned building. He was a man of many interests, travels and recreational pursuits.

When I was doing research some years back in the files of the late U.S. Appeals Court Judge Skelly Wright, of the District of Columbia Circuit, I came across an exchange between Wright and Justice William Brennan in which they shared their apprehension about giving Commencement speeches. These two giants in the law had regular-Joe worries about boring the graduates and having their words fall flat.

I’ve been thinking about their Commencement aversion this season because I am giving two speeches and have found that for those of us down some rungs, the mental burden is much lighter. We can plumb their most intriguing thoughts to make our points.

I was reminded twice in the past week of the culture of notes and letters at the Supreme Court. When I spoke to a group of mid-career journalists at the National Press Foundation on Monday, a reporter asked who at the Court I would call or e-mail if I wanted to interview a justice. I said I often wrote a letter to the justice detailing my request. “A letter?” she said with disbelief and a tone of who-does-that-anymore? But this is an old-fashioned bunch and that is how they regularly communicate with each other and the outside world. Many of them e-mail and even text now, but they still write letters — handwritten letters on heavy, engraved stationery.

I received enough reaction from the post on that snowy February 10 regarding whether journalists should call law clerks for information that I have a sequel. (See “But Would the Supreme Court Law Clerk Have Taken My Call?”)

The late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist could tell a good story. He once regaled the Supreme Court press corps with how his mother had insisted he change his middle name to Hubbs, so that he could have the initial H. This happened when Rehnquist, who grew up in suburban Milwaukee, was about 17 years old and after his mother had met a numerologist on a train ride. The man told Margery Rehnquist that young Bill would become a professional success if his middle name were changed and began with an H. Hubbs was a family name and easy enough to take on — although, as Rehnquist told it, his mother had to go to court to make it official. Rehnquist, as chief justice, seemed amused by the whole affair and a bit in wonder of whether the H had paid off.